Talk of the apocalypse is everywhere. The twin threats of environmental collapse and artificial intelligence (AI) have ballooned in the public imagination. The prognosis feels grim. As even Barack Obama pointed out long ago, the complexity of climate change exploits the weakest point in the international system: its inability to coordinate planning in the face of crisis. AI presents a similar challenge: its already vast global digital infrastructure makes regulation a seemingly Sisyphean task. These types of threats have been dubbed “existential risks” by philosophers like Nick Bostrom and William MacAskill — problems that could lead to human extinction or the irrecoverable collapse of civilization. Disaster feels more palpable than any time since the Cold War.

But it is hard to disentangle this new doomer culture from the real risk of an extinction-level event. Between current AI technologies and a Skynet-style extinction scenario lies a whole science fiction novel — or maybe even a series. Fears of “superintelligence” or “machine agency” currently have little reality to them. But this does not mean that what we do with AI is not risky. Plugging our algorithms into finance, public policy, and the distribution of goods around the networked earth contributes directly to the rising heat at the root of the environmental crisis, all while creating potential instability on the lowest rung of the Maslow hierarchy.

Take the example of SpaceX, which controls more than half the satellites in low orbit around our planet. The US government has effectively allowed military strategy in Ukraine — which relies on the company’s internet service for communication and crucial wartime operations — to become heavily dictated by the whims of a mercurial CEO.